diff --git a/params/__init__.py b/params/__init__.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9086743
--- /dev/null
+++ b/params/__init__.py
@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+# $Id: __init__.py,v 1.1 2010-09-30 16:16:38 wirawan Exp $
+#
+# wpylib.params module
+# Created: 20100930
+# Wirawan Purwanto
+
+"""Parameter-related stuff."""
+
+from wpylib.params.params_flat import Parameters as flat
+
diff --git a/params/params_flat.py b/params/params_flat.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7585cf4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/params/params_flat.py
@@ -0,0 +1,301 @@
+# $Id: params_flat.py,v 1.1 2010-09-30 16:16:38 wirawan Exp $
+#
+# wpylib.params.params_flat module
+# Created: 20100930
+# Wirawan Purwanto
+
+import inspect  # for self-introspection of call stack
+import weakref
+from wpylib.sugar import ifelse
+
+"""
+This module specializes in handling parameters that are defined in
+a 'flat' namespace, i.e. no nested name scoping.
+
+NOTE:
+
+I might explore the idea of nested parameter space later, should a need
+for that arise.
+This nested space is much more complicated, and will require
+copy-on-write kind of support to reduce recursively copying parameters
+whenever the set of parameters is passed from one subroutine to another.
+
+"""
+
+class Parameters(dict):
+  """A standardized way to define and/or pass parameters (with possible
+  default values) among routines.
+
+  This class provides a very flexible lookup scheme for a parameter with
+  a given name.
+  It scans through the namescopes (dicts) in a deterministic and sequential
+  order, returning the first one found.
+  This, hopefully, gets rid of kitchen-sink parameter passing, at least from
+  programmer's point of view.
+
+  WARNING: This object is derived from python dict with ALL method names removed,
+  so as to avoid collosion of these names with user-defined parameters with the
+  same name.
+  Names reserved by this class begin and end with an underscore.
+  Names reserved by python begin and end with two underscores.
+  So, avoid specifying parameters with both leading and trailing underscores.
+  WARNING: Be careful modifying this class; endless recursive calls are
+  possible.
+
+
+  Some uses:
+
+    def stuff(params=None, **kwparams):
+      # `params' defines the standard way of passing parameters, which is
+      # via a Parameters object.
+      # `kwparams' determine a quick way of temporarily overriding a parameter
+      # value.
+      prm = Parameters(kwparams, params, global_defaults)
+      for step in prm.steps:
+         ...
+
+  Parameters can also be updated in this way:
+
+    a = Parameters(...)
+    updates = {'nblk': 7, 'nbasis': 32}
+    a += updates
+
+  or, to call a function with a combination of parameters:
+
+  Reserved private members of the Parameters object:
+  * _no_null_ = (True/False, default False) look for non-null (non-"None") values
+    in all the parameter lists until one is found.
+  * _list_ = (list) the list of parameter dicts to search from.
+  * _kwparam_ = (string, default "_opts_") the default name of the function argument
+    that will hold excess named arguments.
+    Used in _create_() function below.
+    If this is set to None, we will not use this feature.
+  * _userparam_ = (string, default "_p") the default name of the function argument
+    that will contain Parameters-like object given by the user.
+    Used in _create_() function below.
+    If this is set to None, we will not use this feature.
+
+  The most overriding list of parameters, as provided via excess key=value
+  arguments in creating this Parameters object, are stored in "self".
+  """
+
+  class _self_weakref_:
+    """A minimal proxy object, just enough to get a weakref to the 'self' object
+    below to be accesible via a few dict-like lookup mechanisms.
+    Also needed to avoid recursive `in' and [] get operators below."""
+    def __init__(self, obj):
+      self.ref = weakref.ref(obj)
+    def __contains__(self, key):
+      return dict.__contains__(self.ref(), key)
+    def __getitem__(self, key):
+      return dict.__getitem__(self.ref(), key)
+
+  def __init__(self, *_override_dicts_, **_opts_):
+    """
+    Creates a new Parameters() object.
+    The unnamed arguments are taken to be dict-like objects from which we will
+    search for parameters.
+    We silently ignore `None' values which are passed in this way.
+    Parameters will be searched in left-to-right order of these dict-like
+    objects.
+    Then the keyword-style arguments passed on this constructor will become
+    the most overriding options.
+
+    The dict-like objects must contain the following functionalities:
+    * for key in obj:
+        ...
+      (in other words, the __iter__() method).
+    * key in obj
+    * obj[key]
+    That's it!
+
+    Example:
+      defaults = { 'walltime': '6:00:00', 'nwlk': 100 }
+      # ...
+      p = Parameters(defaults, walltime='7:00:00', nblk=300)
+
+    Then when we want to use it:
+      >> p.nwlk
+      100
+      >> p.walltime
+      '7:00:00'
+      >> p.nblk
+      300
+
+    Options:
+    * _no_null_ = if True, look for the first non-None value.
+    * _flatten_ = will flatten the key-value pairs.
+      Note that this may make the Parameters object unnecessarily large in memory.
+      Additionally, this means that the updates in the contents of the dicts
+      passed as the _override_dicts_ can no longer be reflected in this object
+      because of the shallow copying involved here.
+    * _kwparam_
+    * _userparam_
+    At present, the `flatten' attribute will not be propagated to the child
+    Parameters objects created by this parent object.
+    """
+
+    # Remove standard dict procedure names not beginning with "_":
+    for badkw in self.__dict__:
+      if not badkw.startswith("_"):
+        del self.__dict__[badkw]
+    # Store the user-defined overrides in its own container:
+    dict.clear(self)
+    if _opts_.get('_flatten_', False):
+      for p in _override_dicts_:
+        dict.update(self, p)
+      dict.update(self, _opts_)
+    else:
+      dict.update(self, _opts_)
+      # WARNING: Using weakref proxy is important:
+      # - to allow clean deletion of Parameters() objects when not needed
+      # - to avoid recursive 'in' and 'get[]' operators.
+      paramlist = (Parameters._self_weakref_(self),) + _override_dicts_ #+ tuple(deflist))
+      #paramlist = (self,) + _override_dicts_ #+ tuple(deflist))
+      self.__dict__["_list_"] = [ p for p in paramlist if p != None ]
+    self.__dict__["_kwparam_"] = _opts_.get("_kwparam_", "_opts_")
+    self.__dict__["_userparam_"] = _opts_.get("_userparam_", "_p")
+    self.__dict__["_no_null_"] = ifelse(_opts_.get("_no_null_"), True, False)
+    # Finally, filter out reserved keywords from the dict:
+    for badkw in ("_kwparam_", "_userparam_", "_no_null_", "_flatten_"):
+      #if badkw in self: del self[badkw] -- recursive!!!
+      if dict.__contains__(self,badkw): del self[badkw]
+  def _copy_(self):
+    """Returns a copy of the Parameters() object."""
+    return Parameters(_no_null_=self._no_null_,
+                      _kwparam_=self._kwparam_,
+                      _userparam_=self._userparam_,
+                      *self._list_[1:],
+                      **self)
+  def __getattr__(self, key):
+    """Allows options to be accessed in attribute-like manner, like:
+        opt.niter = 3
+    instead of
+        opt['niter'] = 3
+    """
+    if self._no_null_:
+      for ov in self._list_:
+        if key in ov and ov[key] != None: return ov[key]
+    else:
+      for ov in self._list_:
+        if key in ov: return ov[key]
+    # Otherwise: -- but most likely this will return attribute error:
+    return dict.__getattribute__(self, key)
+  def __setattr__(self, key, value):
+    """This method always sets the value on the object's dictionary.
+    Values set will override any values set in the input parameter lists."""
+    self[key] = value
+  def __contains__(self, key):
+    if self._no_null_:
+      for ov in self._list_:
+        if key in ov and ov[key] != None: return True
+    else:
+      for ov in self._list_:
+        if key in ov: return True
+    return False
+  def __getitem__(self, key):
+    if self._no_null_:
+      for ov in self._list_:
+        if key in ov and ov[key] != None: return ov[key]
+    else:
+      for ov in self._list_:
+        if key in ov: return ov[key]
+    raise KeyError, "Cannot find parameter `%s'" % key
+  #def __setitem__(self, key, value):  # -- inherited from dict
+  #  self._prm_[key] = value
+
+  # TODO in the future for iterative accesses:
+  # -- not that essential because we know the name of
+  # the parameters we want to get:
+  #def __iter__(self):  # -- inherited from dict
+  #  """Returns the iterator over key-value pairs owned by this object.
+  #  This does NOT return key-value pairs owned by the _override_dicts_.
+  #  """
+  #  return self._prm_.__iter__()
+  #def _iteritems_(self):
+  #  return self._prm_.iteritems()
+  def _update_(self, srcdict):
+    """Updates the most overriding parameters with key-value pairs from
+    srcdict.
+    Srcdict can be either a dict-derived object or a Parameters-derived
+    object."""
+    dict.update(self, srcdict)
+  def __add__(self, srcdict):
+    """Returns a copy of the Parameters() object, with the most-overriding
+    parameters updated from the contents of srcdict."""
+    rslt = self._copy_()
+    rslt._update_(srcdict)
+    return rslt
+  def _create_(self, kwparam=None, userparam=None, *defaults):
+    """Creates a new Parameters() object for standardized function-level
+    parameter lookup.
+    This routine *must* be called by the function where we want to access these
+    parameters, and where some parameters are to be overriden via function
+    arguments, etc.
+
+    The order of lookup is definite:
+    * local variables of the calling subroutine will take precedence
+    * the excess keyword-based parameters, 
+    * user-supplied Parameters-like object, which is 
+    * the dicts (passed in the `defaults' unnamed parameter list) is searched
+      *last*.
+      I suggest that this is used only as a last-effort safety net.
+      Ideally, the creating Parameters object itself should contain the
+      'factory defaults', as shown in the example below.
+
+    class Something(object):
+      def __init__(self, ...):
+        # self.opts holds the factory default
+        self.opts = Parameters()
+        self.opts.cleanup = True # example
+    
+      def doit(self, src=None, info=None,
+               _defaults_=dict(src="source.txt", info="INFO.txt", debug=1),
+               **_opts_):
+        # FIXME: use self-introspection to reduce kitchen-sink params here:
+        p = self.opts._create_(_defaults_)
+        #   ^ This will create an equivalent of:
+        # Parameters(locals(), _opts_, _opts_.get('opts'), self.opts, _defaults)
+        # Now use it:
+        if p.cleanup:
+          ... do something
+    """
+    # Look up the stack of the calling function in order to retrieve its
+    # local variables
+    from inspect import stack
+    caller = stack()[1][0] # one frame up; element-0 is the stack frame
+
+    if kwparam == None: kwparam = self._kwparam_
+    if userparam == None: userparam = self._userparam_
+
+    # local variables will be the first scope to look for
+    localvars = caller.f_locals
+    contexts = [ localvars ]
+    # then _opts_ excess-keyword parameters (see example of doit() above)
+    if kwparam in localvars:
+      _opts_ = localvars[kwparam]
+      contexts.append(_opts_)
+    else:
+      _opts_ = {}
+    # then opts, an explicitly-defined argument which contain a set of parameters
+    if userparam in localvars:
+      opts = localvars[userparam]
+      contexts.append(opts)
+    else:
+      opts = {}
+      if userparam in _opts_:
+        contexts.append(_opts_[userparam])
+
+    # then this own Parameters data will come here:
+    contexts.append(self)
+
+    # then any last-minute defaults
+    contexts += [ d for d in defaults ]
+
+    # Now construct the Parameters() class for this calling function:
+    return Parameters(_kwparam_=kwparam, _userparam_=userparam, *contexts)
+
+  #def __dict__(self):
+  #  return self._prm_
+
+
diff --git a/params/params_flat_test.py b/params/params_flat_test.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c0f2598
--- /dev/null
+++ b/params/params_flat_test.py
@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+# $Id: params_flat_test.py,v 1.1 2010-09-30 16:16:38 wirawan Exp $
+# 20100930
+
+from wpylib.params import flat as params
+
+def test1():
+  defaults = {
+    'nbasis': 320,
+    'npart': 37,
+    'deltau': 0.025,
+  }
+  p = params(defaults, nbasis=332)
+
+  print "self-defined values = ", p
+  print "nbasis = ", p.nbasis
+  print "npart = ", p.npart
+  print "deltau = ", p.deltau
+  p.deltau = 0.01
+  print "new deltau = ", p.deltau
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+  test1()
+